Barcelona-based artist Jordi Ferreiro will be in residence at Lighthouse 15-19 July. Over the week, Jordi will take over our main reception space with the aim of developing a prototype for how Lighthouse can open its doors. In a series of public communal lunches he will be inviting different speakers to share their perspectives and experiences about how Lighthouse can open up to different users and uses, and what operational or architectural changes this might mean.

Communal lunches — July 16, 18, 19 – find out more and book.

‘Cuñas, topes y sujetapuertas / doorstops, wedges and holding space’ has been developed through conversations with Matt Weston, director of Spacemakers, an artist-run regeneration group based in Brighton, and forms the culmination of Curator in Residence Eva Rowson’s programme ‘Who’s doing the washing up – and where’s the sink?’. Over the past six months, Eva has been working with Lighthouse on a programme of artist commissions, workshops and events to think about the future of Lighthouse’s building, how it works and who it serves.

Eva says:

“Lighthouse hosts a lot of different activity, programming and people: from exhibitions to events to training programmes and commercial conferences. As an organisation, it is also constantly thinking and re-thinking how it can provide an accessible arts space for artists, local groups and its surrounding communities to meet, experiment, learn and develop their practices.

Jordi’s residency continues from our Potential Wor(l)ds event in April. The event heard from different artists and organisers who are working from marginalised positions about their strategies in making spaces on their own terms – and how an organisation like Lighthouse can support them. As Lighthouse continues to work to be more open to new users and practices, how can it listen to what’s needed? What internal changes need to happen in order to open up externally? And, for groups and activities that need safe and closed spaces, is holding the door open always the solution?”

The communal lunches are catered by local non-profit cooking collectives including Lalibela Ethiopian Kitchen and Brighton Cauldron, for whom cooking and meeting over food are important ways to develop support networks and skills. The lunches are a continuation of a monthly lunch for Lighthouse users organised in collaboration with Lighthouse tenant Judith Burns (Office Manager, Culture 24).

Jordi Ferreiro is an artist and educator based in Barcelona, Spain. His projects use strategies based on institutional mediation, play and experimental educational movements to interfere in the relations between institutions, art and audiences. His research into organisational models has developed recently through the collaborative project ‘como imaginar una musea?’ (how to imagine a feminist museum?) – an ongoing attempt to re-think the art institution from a feminist perspective, run on concepts of collaboration, hospitality and shared access.

Spacemakers is an artist-run regeneration group, led by Matt Weston and Tom James. They create radical, bottom-up regeneration projects, which aim to get inside the machinery of urban regeneration, and use it for good instead of evil. They’re currently leading a project with Turner Prize winning Assemble, artist Peter Nencini and graphic designers Europa to redevelop New England House, a 10,000 SQM council-owned factory in Brighton.

Supported by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) also supports Jordi Ferreiro’s residency and commission at Lighthouse through the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE), in the framework of the Mobility grants.